


Have Faith and Wait

by KingMobUK



Series: A Captain's Dreams [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Dreams, Dreamscapes, Friendship/Love, Gen, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, Male Friendship, Memories, Mentioned Ukitake Juushirou, Mentioned Yamamoto Genryuusai, Roleplay Logs, Snow, Waiting, Winter, Winter Solstice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 13:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20115508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingMobUK/pseuds/KingMobUK
Summary: Ten years after they were both made captain, Ukitake Jyuushirou is out on patrol with 13th Division. Meanwhile, back at 8th, Kyouraku Shunsui waits for news.





	Have Faith and Wait

You don't mind the winter. Not really.

You used to, when you were younger - used to spend it cross-legged and wrapped tightly in a blanket; books tossed sulkily to one side and shivering as you watched your breath freeze on an already frost-patterned window. Rubbing too hard at the glass was a wasted effort, which only resulted in icy fingertips and rarely revealed anything outside save for stark, grey stone and the dark skeletons of trees against the white.

Occasionally, the soft clack of geta and a black-clad servant hurrying about their business would break the monotony - but for the most part you barely even noticed, attention drifting as easily as the snow to dream of long, sultry, summer days, now equally as distant in both past and future. It had seemed like forever, then - that long wait for spring and the freedom it brought with it. The freedom to escape from the weight of family and duty for hours at a time - to climb the plum trees and lay in the meadows watching feathery clouds form and reform in the sky; to smell the mingled scents of flowers drifting on a warm breeze and taste the freshness of spring rains lingering in a stalk of grass.

But now your life is different. You're different. You've learned to appreciate the winter, not to wish it away. Now you see it through someone else's eyes - see the beauty in the frost when it sparkles under the moon and in the green shoots of snowdrops as they push up from under a carpet of white. Now, the onset of winter brings with it a charm that you never expected it to hold - a time for companionship - for shared memories of snowball fights and ice-skating and laughing breathlessly in the chill air over cups of warm sake.

Now, there's an awareness of never being alone. You no longer wear the kamon of your family like a brand - instead you wear the symbol of something else entirely - something that holds a meaning beyond even the obvious... though not tonight. Tonight, in an echo of your childhood, you're wrapped tightly in a blanket; standing barefoot on the veranda outside your quarters and watching the soft flakes of snow settle gently on the roofs.

You don't mind the winter. Not really.

It's not the cold that keeps you from your bed and your mind from peace. It's not the snow that you're listening for when you close your eyes and reach out with all your senses even though you know that what you're looking for is well beyond your range; beyond the the constant waves and eddies in the reiatsu of the shinigami under your command.

No, it's the knowledge that the crisp, chill freshness of the winter air makes ideal conditions for hollows to hunt - that there's nothing to disguise the scent of the powerful souls that they prize the most. And when you try to sleep - when you close your eyes - it's to nightmares of claws ripping open burned and smouldering flesh; to bones being crunched into dust and to white hair stained red with blood.

"Taichou!"

Hurried salutes from a passing guard patrol are a welcome distraction from your thoughts and you raise a hand in acknowledgement, leaning casually on the veranda's rail so you can see their faces better in the bleaching moonlight.

"Any news from Thirteenth?"

"No, Taichou!"

You nod, then straighten up and step back into the shadows, with a lazy wave towards the gate.

"Get back to it, then."

A half-smile as you watch them hurry away, and your breath mists in the frigid air as you murmur to yourself something that Yama-jii had said, when you first put on a captain's haori a scant ten years before.

_"It's also a captain's duty to have faith and wait."_


End file.
